(1) How are you defining "happiness"? If you define happiness as social interaction, obviously the introverts will be "unhappy". Here, this study seems to define it as "psychological well-being (measured by self-esteem, life satisfaction, and happiness)". Is being unsatisfied bad? I would argue that it is not necessarily true. Unsatisfied people tend to bring change to society. So what are we trying to optimize for? You improve what you measure. Are we measuring the right metric? If having high levels of dopamine is happiness, is it ok to inject everyone with dopamine to make them "happy"?
(2) Are these activities symptoms of unhappiness or causes? I think they are just symptoms. The more I study about this, the more I feel that "unhappiness" is more of a trait. Mostly genes and internal hormones and chemistry and biology. This constant push to be "happy" makes life worse for the "sad" people.
To be satisfied means having one’s own needs or desires met. What we are optimizing for, in this case, is people’s self-reported evaluation of their own value function.
That being said, I think there is merit to your second point, although I don’t believe we have enough evidence to know.
It mentions various "factors that correlate with subjective well-being (individuals' own assessments of their happiness and life satisfaction)". Quoting from it: <<<
Factors that don't correlate much with happiness include: age[7], gender[8], parenthood[9], intelligence[10], physical attractiveness[11], and money[12] (as long as you're above the poverty line). Factors that correlate moderately with happiness include: health[13], social activity[14], and religiosity[15]. Factors that correlate strongly with happiness include: genetics[16], love and relationship satisfaction[17], and work satisfaction[18].
(...)
Genes account for about 50% of the variance in happiness[19]. Even lottery winners and newly-made quadriplegics do not see as much of a change in happiness as you would expect[20]. Presumably, genes shape your happiness by shaping your personality, which is known to be quite heritable[21].
So which personality traits tend to correlate most with happiness? Extroversion is among the best predictors of happiness[22], as are conscientiousness, agreeableness, self-esteem, and optimism[23].
>>>
Numbers I put in square brackets in the quote above are all references to papers. The article goes on to discuss how those correlates suggest effective ways of improving your own happiness.
I'm not in the field so I won't judge the quality of the referenced research, or how much results have changed since 2011, but still, it seems that we do know quite a lot about this.
(Also note that, despite it being very unpopular fact, genes seem to pop up as strong - even leading - predictor in very many personal traits, including intelligence.)
Interesting points. Also, I've always wondered how you do prevent lying when it comes to self-reporting? Extroverts, who are expected to be happy, could just self report as being happy, even when they are not. How do we know that participants are really being honest?
> This constant push to be "happy" makes life worse for the "sad" people.
It also makes it worse for "happy" people because they have a higher bar to climb.
Lately, I've been seeing a lot of "teens are lonely", "teens are depressed", "loneliness epidemic", etc. We know that media content influences everyone, especially teens. What effect are the news stories themselves having on the kids.
Psychology has decently defined conditions for depression and gauging risk factors, so it might be the absence of depression factors and symptoms rather than defining the eternally debated philosophical nature of "happiness".
This is a good and simple thing to focus on. My working theory—-as a parent of a soon-to-be teenager—was that teens are missing out on any true responsibility. No one expects them to do anything that actually is crucial to the family or community. That said, I don’t yet know what that will be for my kids. Maybe some kind of service thing weekly, or maybe it’s some critical chores.
I have much younger kids, and we also think this is very important. It seems like everything in a kid's life is so nerfed. For us it starts with letting the kids do things on the playground with an actual risk of injury (obviously we're trying to avoid actual serious injury, but we think the kids need agency).
It also involves letting them make decisions that can have bad outcomes that are largely harmless when they're young, like getting a stomach ache from too much candy, and clearly connecting the act to the consequence. So far it's worked pretty well, our kids have a good idea of what's healthy and what's not.
We're also going to do something like set up Etsy stores for the kids so that they get experience with buying supplies and making a product that's good enough for a stranger to buy, manipulating the web page (and eventually we'll move on to them making making their own Shopify or Wordpress sites), and running social media accounts for the businesses and what not. We're already getting one store started for our five year old who's really interested in making money (for now).
We're doing a lot of it now, but we're planning on having them take on more and more responsibility as they get older. Instead of doing chores (or in addition), they'll be actually interacting with the world in a way that's analagous to adulthood. Who knows how it will play out, but we're excited to see what happens.
Another 'real world' skill your kids will really thank you for eventually is cooking a full meal from scratch, including knowledge of meat temperatures, spices to use, timing different dishes, and being able to calmly handle the inevitable 'the kitchen is filled with smoke and all the fire alarms in the house are going off' cooking mistakes.
Another (and related) field would be basic first aid, and more importantly being able to handle injuries more-or-less calmly even when you've cut your hand open or dumped a bunch of very hot water on yourself.
I had to cook dinner once a week from when I was about 13 years old, so by the time I left home at 18 I was pretty confident in cooking.
I was shocked at how may people at university were completely incapable of cooking. Boiling water was about the most complex cooking skill they had. I have a colleague who's a fresh graduate and still lives at home, she admitted to me that she has literally no idea how to cook. Like even something as simple as spaghetti Bolognese (i.e. the stuff from a jar, just add ground meat and pasta) would be beyond her.
I find it even more troubling that people like this apparently cannot read instructions and follow them.
There's a simple stepwise list of instructions on the box/can/jar. They're making it as easy as humanly possible, short of actually providing a person to cook for you, and yet some people still can't do it.
I resent the smug tone of this post. I have ADHD; I am neither lazy nor stupid, but cooking is an ordeal for me. I cannot follow cooking instructions, at least not reliably. I'll look at the list of ingredients and get the amounts wrong (mix up one line for the line below/above it), or do the steps out of order. I've forgotten to put the flavor packet in the pot when making Hamburger Helper. I've put chocolate chips into a cookie dough mix too early, meticulously picked them out, then dumped them right back in again.
Congratulations for you that cooking is simple and easy. It isn't for everybody.
I understand that it may be difficult for you, but the people we're talking about don't have ADHD, they're just lacking in basic life skills.
A lot of people spend their first 18 years with no responsibilities, they always had a parent or someone else to do things for them. They are then rudely awakened when they leave home and have to fend for themselves.
A lot of the skills that they were missing were things that I had been doing for years, because I was fortunate enough to have parents who taught me how to do things rather than just doing it for me. I disliked it at the time, having to do my own work, but it was important to learn.
Often the skills that my friends were lacking were just basic life skills, such as being able to sew on a button or a patch, how to operate a washing machine properly, how to change a car tyre or their oil (or at least check their oil), how to iron a shirt, etc. etc.
They were also lacking in more important life skills, like being able to budget properly and look after their money. I knew a group of girls in one house who ended up spending hundreds of dollars a month for electricity in winter, because they were running heaters in every room 24/7 to try and keep their uninsulated house warm, they just didn't even think of what their power bill would be and were shocked when they received it. I can't remember exactly what it was, but it was more than double what me and my housemates were paying.
I think part of the problem is that a lot of people refuse to even try, maybe because something is not immediately obvious to them, or because they're afraid to fail.
They're simply lacking in basic curiosity and cannot accept that sometimes you have to fail, in order to learn.
I absolutely did not mean my post as a slight against people with ADHD, I sometimes struggle with deficient attention and focus myself, and I've done similar things to what you describe, especially if I've been tired or stressed out.
My post was meant as a critique of otherwise normally-functioning adults who are somehow completely deficient in completely basic skills, and even lack the tools or willingness to apply previous experiences and learn how to do things.
They're lacking the very basic skill of being able to learn, which I think is terrifying.
Excellent points! Cooking is definitely something I'm grateful I picked up from my mom growing up and we really try to involve the kids in the kitchen as well.
And first aid is a great skill as well that I hadn't thought of. My wife was a life guard so she has a lot of good instincts kind of baked in from that that she's been passing on to the kids.
Teach them to do their own laundry. I ruined most of my clothes when I moved out and an 18 yro has no budget to replace a wardrobe. I’m still annoyed that I wasn’t taught something so simple.
Paul Graham has a great article about how high schoolers are basically stuck in a situation of no responsibility, no consequences. And, so naturally they fall back on cliques and highly elevated social consequences for inconsequential issues just to have something at all matter in their lives. The same thing happens in prisons, for example. He points out that a young (white male because of the times) would be responsible for a trade or even land by the time he was 20 in medieval times. But, today we expect “kids” to basically be babysat until they are 21. No wonder they rebel.
Not really - not everyone feels like they have things to rebel against.
My spouse was one of those. He never really felt like he had anything to rebel against. By the time he was a teenager, it had been established that his limits were reasonable. Sure, he questioned why something was so, but always got an actual reason. Sure, he says he was a jerk and stuff, but that's immaturity. Rebellion? No need.
One of the things we got taught in civics classes after I moved to Norway was that parents had no right to choose a child's friends/boyfriend/girlfriend nor what they'll study in the last few years of school.
On the other hand, I lied to my mother regularly just to do normal stuff. If I left the mall to eat at a place that sat in the parking lot, I was supposed to call to get permission first. I wasn't allowed to go to anyone's house without my mother talking to their parents to make sure it was OK. I had to quit a job because my parents didn't want me working every weekend and had no choice but to go to church on sundays and many times, the reason for a limit was "because I said so".
MY father was much more lenient: He'd ask some basic questions and tell me what time to be home, giving me a chance to ask for a later time dependent on plans (he'd let me stay later for a later movie, for example, if I had a way home).
It all depends on what sorts of limits you have and how reasonable they are. Even to a teenager.
I also had a very open and rather permissive childhood. Of course my parents set limits, but they seemed logical most of the time. They encouraged me to engage in various activities and were supportive of my choice of activity, even if it was just trying out football (soccer) a single time, simply to see whether I'd like it. When I told them afterwards that it wasn't for me anyway, they supported my decision.
I feel that because I struck out on my own somewhat later than a lot of my peers, it took somewhat longer for me to be actually independent and my own person, realizing that what my parents or other people in a position of authority says, is not always correct.
I don't think everyone should actively distrust your parents, but I do feel that it's important to be independent and your own person, instead of relying on your parents' values and judgments.
I'm not sure if that's not a modern concept. I can't imagine that much rebelling going on in pre-modern times. Back then, father of the family was the ultimate authority, and also one of the few sources of knowledge about life skills that was actually available for children to learn from (unlike now, when the world changes so fast that parents' knowledge can be obsotele and even counterproductive for children, and they know that).
For my kids, scouting has been huge for this: they get true, meaningful responsibility; they learn to serve the community; they get to be with their buddies; they get to push themselves physically; they attain life skills; they have experiences that they wouldn't otherwise have; and they get to explore the outdoors. Your mileage may vary of course -- but I highly recommended scouting as a fun and engaging way to generate responsible young adults.
Everyone, as they gain skill, and begin to "wake up" as people, ownes something.
It is not just a chore. Others won't do it. Intended. Or, if they do, it is a debt of sorts. Consequenses.
Say the cat box gets too dirty. The bathroom stinks. People notice, but more importantly, the one who owns it notices eventually.
Then the dots get connected.
My wife would have them do meals, planning, money, store. And then make them do it. We ate the outcome.
Lol (was interesting at times)
Doing it this way does carry some risk. Say a light meal because someone did not think it through the planning, or shitty school lunch one day because same, or someone got the munchies. But, just make sure it is livable, not super ugly.
I did car stuff, fixing things. The kids would check things, and do upkeep. I did double check these. But out of sight. Oil, lights, tires.
Same for the yard.
For a time, I was self employed. One older daughter did billing and books.
Think language immersion. It is like that. Let them sink, and they will swim. Or, if not, pull them out, let them be kids, and try again. Often they would ask me for something.
It's worse than that. There's basically no activity that they can do that doesn't have parents/adults involved. There's no way for them to just go out, make mistakes and figure stuff out any more.
Bullshit. My kids lived for years within 10 houses of a trailhead. They could have explored 20 miles of trails on any given day. Not once. Not ever. No one goes outside. And the soccer moms are now Facebook moms, their own screentime making them so anxious that the vanishingly low possibility that some kid could get kidnapped is enough that they don't throw the kids outside and lock the door.
Being locked out of the house was my default state most summers.
Same. I see moms sitting in cars when near their kids at the bus stop. It's freaking ridiculous.
If the kids started walking or playing in those trails, I bet some adult would start coming along to supervise. Probably make the kids sign up for an outdoor camp or scouts instead.
I find parents 1) bringing kids to the bus stop (if they are getting into the car just bring them all the way to school!) and 2) waiting there with them (wtf?) absolutely the most bizarre thing ever. Crazy! People do that here with preteens and teens! FFS!
For some reason it jumped out at me that they considered time in religious services as a measurable component of how an ordinary person might spend their time. I can see how it might be relevant to the topic at hand but it's quite uncommon for me to encounter a normative discussion of religious activity as an unremarkable thing.
Is it common (i.e. do I live in a bubble) or is it a marker of something about this article that I am missing? I pretty much only encounter mention of religion in the news headlines and am not sure I even know anyone who attends any kind of religious service more than two or three times a year.
It may be quite common and I might live in a bubble, but then is it mentioned routinely?
I lived in Indiana the first 35 years of life, generally in towns with 3000-70,000 people. It was quite common for folks to go to church. Single? Want friends? and so on? You needed church. It was really, really common. To the point that folks weren't as willing to be openly athiest or customers at a retail place to assume that since employees were nice, they must all be good Christians. It was definitely mentioned, and wasn't uncommon for folks to ask where others went to church.
I always got the impression that larger cities or different areas were more free with this sort of thing.
I now live in Norway, and I know very few folks that spend a lot of time at church. There definitely aren't nearly as many of them here in town, and I think half the churches are as much of a tourist attraction as they are places for congregation. There is also more activities that aren't connected with any sort of religion here as well - organized volunteer work, for example, with no affiliation with religion.
> I always got the impression that larger cities or different areas were more free with this sort of thing.
Historically that's been one of the points of cities: if you don't like the rules where you live you go to a city where there are too many people for that sort of conformism. Of course some cities become large enough that they can have self-selected pockets similar to smaller conurbations. Interesting that the 70K town you lived in (not much bigger than Palo Alto) also exhibited this culture, though presumably less intensely.
Roughly 20% of the USA will be at church this Sunday. In other countries it might be lower (e.g. about 10% of Australians will be at church this Sunday) but in western nations a general rule of thumb is that each week more people will be at church than will watch a game of professional sport live.
What you are probably seeing is not really a filter bubble, but the personalisation of religion that's happened over the last generation or so. One of the Baptist distinctives ("religion is your own personal choice -- it's not dictated by your country or your community!") has become completely in-grained in our thinking. So religion just doesn't get discussed in public forums any more.
As a fun exercise: ask 20 work colleagues (or fellow students or other random sample) about their religion. You'll be surprised at what you find, and it could lead to some of the most interesting conversations you'll have this year.
> Roughly 20% of the USA will be at church this Sunday. ... a general rule of thumb is that each week more people will be at church than will watch a game of professional sport live.
Interesting comparison: they are also mass participatory activities of the sort described in the article, with scope for discussion during (sport) and after (!!) in the case of religion. Quite different from watching at home.
I went to a professional game this year and realised that it was the 8th one I'd attended (never watched one on TV). Now looking back I've probably attended about the same number (less than a dozen) formal abrahamic services my entire life as well (weddings, funerals, services, bar mitzvah). I'm 54; my parents, in their 80s, are probably at about the same number -- perhaps a few more funerals in recent years. Apart from one "crazy aunt" in India who would drag me along to the temple when we'd visit I pretty much don't know any people who profess to be attendees. Note I've always lived in low-religion regions of low-religion countries (Australia, Germany, USA and France) so it could be a self-selection issue.
> ... personalisation of religion ... has become completely in-grained in our thinking. So religion just doesn't get discussed in public forums any more.
It's interesting; I know the desire for this state of affairs runs prominently through the writing of most of the US government's founders and it seems like a good republican (i.e. non-arisocracy/monarchy ideal). But I can believe something could have been lost in the process. It seems like the only mass participatory activity Americans have in common any more is the useless TSA rituals :-(.
If there are churches near you why not drive by one or two any random Sunday morning around 10:30 or 11:00. Do it a few weekends in a row and see if your impression changes.
There is literally one at the corner of the next block and parking is never an issue on Sunday. I walk my dog past a few and apart from being well maintained they seem pretty deserted. The exception is the one downtown Palo Alto where Harold and Maude was filmed, but mainly I see wedding parties coming out on Saturdays.
Anecdata: ACLF in Mountain View had so many people attending that they had to have volunteers direct traffic.
(To be fair, that was about a decade ago, so it might have changed. And even now it just looks like an office block rather than a church, so there's no way you would pick up on it when walking past.)
My hypothesis for which I have only anecdotal evidence is that us evolved monkeys still thrive with face to face social activity. We need body language, voice, faces, and even touch. A sense of community. If you look at the chart, pretty much all activities correlated with happines are social. I'm an atheist and I interpret positive effects of religion on wellbeing is that churches gathering places, and prayer is close to meditation. And social media so down on the list... it's a SUBSTITUTE of normal interaction.
I think the screen time-happiness causation might be backwards. When I was a miserable, angsty teen, messing around on the computer was the only time I could focus on something and distract myself from being extremely emotional. Being around my friends generally made me anxious and depressed. I was drawn to the computer because I consciously knew it was relief from unhappiness.
Based on my (arguably hazy, at this point) childhood memories, maybe what's making teens unhappy isn't so much smartphone use, but better networking with other teens.
Based on my own memories, smartphone use would have been a bonus. I went through times with literally zero friends. It upped to a small group of 3-5, and after we moved I only really had 1 friend for a few years.
That time with no friends: For a few preteen years, I didn't do my homework, which meant I got lunch detention. I had loose friendships with some kids I knew in elementary school, but we didn't speak in school. Then we moved when I was 13. I got labeled lesbian and people ignored me for the rest of the year. (I'm bisexual, but didn't really realize I was looking at the time) I made a few friends from other middle schools the first year of high school, hence the small group of friends.
I remember getting AOL my last year of high school - for a short time, anyway, until I ran up the bill due to the hourly billing. It was wonderful to simply talk to other folks my age, one of which also got snail mail for a while. I felt less lonely.
It makes it really hard for me to understand the internet making folks lonely or unhappy - it has always enhanced my life to this day when I've had regular accesss (I'm 40 now). I even met my spouse playing a text-based MMORPG, so I wouldn't even have my life without it.
Maybe this is different for kids that are more "normal" than I ever was.
I first read this as a condemnation of phone use, but that may just have been a bias. On a second reading, I found that it was very careful in specifying that all observations were correlations:
>Because this analysis is correlational, we can’t tell if these activities cause happiness, happiness causes teens to engage in these activities more, or if the same type of teens do both.
I'd be very interested in seeing a randomized trial to find causations, but the ethical implications get in the way one again.
Is psychologytoday considered an authority in the psychology space?
This isn't specifically about this article but I have read a number of psychologytoday articles recently and they feel like their are opinion pieces loosely backed by studies. This article seems like pretty sound advice, but sometimes I worry that some articles get presented as cold hard scientific facts when they are really just one model or theory.
The replication crisis in psychology started by selecting high impact papers published in reputable psychological journals. Cold hard scientific facts and psychology simply do not go together. And that's not necessarily a condemnation of the field, but rather just a statement that it should be viewed as observations with proposed explanations rather than 'cold hard scientific fact.' For instance I think this little article does a good job of making clear to the reader that what they're discussing is entirely a correlation. There might be reasons for this, or it could just be entirely spurious.
No one should really be considered an authority in the field of psychology. Sure they can get things right sometimes but it's not rigorous enough fundamentally to add much validity. It's their bread and butter to spam NHST at the data until something sticks.
This seems obvious...as the author says, face-to-face interaction leads to happier (people) teens (bar sleep). People with friends seem to spend more time face-to-face with other people.
The simple and traditional "introversion = evil extroversion = good" meme is tempting, but alternative explanations are possible.
For the majority, which are introverted, possibly "everything must be social on smartphones" combined with non-face-to-face interaction means phone-time means they never get that alone time to recharge and feel better, can never quite get away from the dreaded notification pull-down drawer.
Imagine a world where cultural pressure combined with advanced social media technology makes meditation and introspection and privacy and serenity impossible; for some people that would be heaven, others, hell, regardless which, its certainly what we have now.
Another interesting theory, possibly even accurate: kid-only interaction is inherently bad, in the "Lord of the Flies" sense. Adult interaction might be good, Cross-age tribal interaction might be good. Possibly all kid-only interaction is bad and has always been bad; its certainly very artificial and non-evolutionary and pre-social media there have been critiques of the culture produced by kids interacting solely with other kids. If that theory is correct, then a hand-held device that pumps more of something that can only be poisonous would likely make most kids more unhappy on average. If a culture of "Lord of the Flies" sucked, then "Lord of the Flies, now as a social phone app" is merely going to suck more.
When I was a kid, I generally avoided other kids. With a few exceptions. Because, as you say, "Lord of the Flies" bullshit. And damn, I like that: social media = "Lord of the Flies" :)
Hang out with friends, goto the mall or other hangouts, play Minecraft, watch Youtube and Twitch and Vine and try to make their own videos, ride bicycles, and argue with their parents.
A few things have changed, but teen-age is largely the same as it was for us.
sci-hub
•• Search for a proxy to download an article ••
Decreases in Psychological Well-Being Among American
Adolescents After 2012 and Links to Screen Time During
the Rise of Smartphone Technology.
Twenge 2018
10.1037 / emo0000403
no suitable proxies found
How come that video arcades are in that list? I know that in some countries they still exist, but as relevant part of teenage culture? Hard to believe.
Is there anything more stereotypical for a depressed teenager to do than listen to music? That's a mystery that solves itself. Sitting alone, staring into a wall while listening to music is not a thing most healthy people do. For most, music is a secondary activity.
Anyway, I don't think the screen matters much per se. Being social in person is good. Not being so is bad.
This is strange to me. It seems like a modern change -- is it? Mostly today I see people listening to music while doing something else, or hearing it as background for movies/TV/games/commercials/stores.
In the past, we didn't think it was strange to just listen to a record. That was how we heard music. It wasn't a sign of depression. (Before 2005, the most I ever did to music was drive a car.) Music used to be a more social activity due to technological limitations, but one consequence is that it was more often a primary activity.
I suspect that I have some condition (hidden hearing loss, perhaps), as I can't just listen to music while doing something else. If there's music playing, my brain can't ignore it, or background it. Maybe these people who listen to music in private simply aren't physically able to appreciate it the way most others are. The constant noise of modern life causes anxiety for me, too.
Concerts may be more social but they're also a lot more expensive. Bumbershoot was $10 in 1997, $35 in 2007, and $130 this year. You can't blame teens for choosing to listen to music in private. I don't know how any teens could afford to go to concerts today.
Ticket prices for bigger bands have definitely gone way up.
I'm very happy that the genres I listen to are still rather niche and out of the mainstream. The most expensive concert tickets I've ever bought were less than $100, and that was an arena show with two fairly big local bands.
> Sitting alone, staring into a wall while listening to music is not a thing most healthy people do. For most, music is a secondary activity.
It's called listening carefully and it's something that every serious musician does on a regular basis. What a strange notion you have that this, an act that requires concentration and discernment, is unhealthy.
Anyway from my own personal experience before I even realized I had depression I was using music to 'substitute' and stimulate emotional tracks that were starting to fade into nothingness.
Looking at the list of activities from a correlative standpoint alone is likely useless without proper derivation of causation. Lack of in person time for instance may because they are bullied and lack any positive interactions with others. Or simply because they are already depressed they lack the energy and receive no pleasure from it so they don't seek it out.
Trying to put a correlative list into action is likely to be counterproductive like deciding what those paralyzed kids really need is to be thrown from their wheelchair down stairs so they can start walking again.
uhmm.. Staring into a book while listening to silence.. staring into a wall listening to music.. These are introspective journeys. You can’t expect everyone to be social in person from day 13.. Some ppl need time before they bloom socially. Social blooming is different for everyone.
Sitting alone just listening to music is how I am able to enjoy all the details and nuances of a great piece of music. I'm a little bit disturbed that you seem to consider it an unhealthy activity.
I also enjoy listening to music while driving or doing the dishes or hanging laundry. I also enjoy going to concerts and experiencing great musicians live.
Both those are all different contexts, different ways of enjoying the music.
To fully immerse myself, dedicated distraction-free listening is required.
And I think it's healthy to break away from the constant distractions of modern life and just listen for an hour or so.
If you're having a bunch of angsty feelings, listening to music can really help make you feel better and more connected with other people and the world.
I think this is a matter of correlation doesn't equal causation.
That aspect of the linked article was simply weird. In the late 80s, sitting on a school bus and listening to your walkman was very common and popular. Listening to portable music was invented by Sony in the 70s/80s not Apple.
(1) How are you defining "happiness"? If you define happiness as social interaction, obviously the introverts will be "unhappy". Here, this study seems to define it as "psychological well-being (measured by self-esteem, life satisfaction, and happiness)". Is being unsatisfied bad? I would argue that it is not necessarily true. Unsatisfied people tend to bring change to society. So what are we trying to optimize for? You improve what you measure. Are we measuring the right metric? If having high levels of dopamine is happiness, is it ok to inject everyone with dopamine to make them "happy"?
(2) Are these activities symptoms of unhappiness or causes? I think they are just symptoms. The more I study about this, the more I feel that "unhappiness" is more of a trait. Mostly genes and internal hormones and chemistry and biology. This constant push to be "happy" makes life worse for the "sad" people.